Maps and Map Learning in Social Studies Social Education November/December 2006 by Sarah Bednarz
The November 2006 issue of Social Education, a journal published by the National Council for the Social Studies, featured a quite interesting article about the importance of teaching map usage in the social studies classroom. Maps and Map Learning in Social Studies, by Sarah Bednarz, highlights the growing importance of teaching students critical map using skills and offered several useful suggestions for teachers on how to get the job done.
I will not lie, I initially considered this article for reflection because it was short and offered a few teaching strategies at the end. However, as I read through the piece, I rather unpleasantly discovered that my understanding of good map teaching was clearly incomplete and if unchecked would do a grave disservice to my future geography pupils. The problem lies in the difference between teaching orienteeringskills, i.e. showing kids how to find stuff on maps, and teaching withmaps. It seems that many geography teachers have, like myself, failed to see the difference between these concepts.
“Teaching with maps means using maps to help students learn key social studies concepts and relationships. Teaching with maps allows students to learn through maps--that is, to think spatially--in various reasoning and problem-solving contexts in the classroom and real world.” These are higher order thinking skills which are not present in baseline lessons where we teach students that the red line represents a highway and we know how long it is because we have a map scale. This does not mean that knowing the difference between Albania and Alabama because of their cartographic locations is not important, only that we can teach much more with our lessons.
Bednarz points out that part of the problem surrounding map teaching is that few geography teachers understand that spatial awareness comes quite naturally to people at a young age. Symbols are frequently attached to primary school teaching maps which confuse young students’ understanding of otherwise comprehensible information. For example, she notes that young British students interpreted a car symbol to possibly mean the location of a broken down car, a traffic jam and a place where people prefer red cars--none of them guessed that the symbol indicated a region where cars are manufactured. What this tells us is that the spatial awareness represented in mapping may come quite naturally to students, but our common teaching methodologies are all wrong.
First of all, the objectives of map lessons should center on the use of maps to “organize information about people, places and environments” with an eye on analyzing the patterns in the information. After we have determined our initial goals, several strategies can be used by teachers to encourage higher order thinking with maps. One suggestion is that by the fourth grade, students should be able to read a story and create a map to represent it. This is excellent practice for stretching out spatial understanding, and need not be singularly limited to geography or even social studies curricula. A great idea for such an assignment could be to model the process with a Family Circus cartoon (you know the ones, where Billy has the dotted line following his circuitous route as he dutifully performs a task) and assign students to spatially retrace their own steps off of a journal entry.
Similarly, Bednarz suggests that a social studies teacher could assign students to create a map based on the poem Paul Revere’s Ride. “Linking what with where, and reading and thinking with and through maps, makes content more memorable.”
Such lesson suggestions answer to multiple intelligences theory on several levels including the bodily/kinesthetic, visual/spatial, logical/mathematical and intrapersonal modalities.
A more advanced class could benefit from lessons about the political implications of map reading. It is well known that world maps distributed to Russian children during the Cold War depicted the United States of America and other NATO allies as being geographically smaller than they actually were. Similarly, in the disputed presidential election of 2000, legal teams for both the Democratic and Republican parties generated population and voter density maps to support their side’s claim to victory. One of China’s claims to the legitimacy of its forced annexation of Tibet is related to ancient dynastic maps. Many inquiry based lessons about political agendas, perspectives, biases and distortions can be built around map projections.
Any social studies teacher who prides him/herself on being well rounded in content and application should take a hard look at the map lessons they are presenting to their students. There is a strong possibility that their self-evaluation may not measure up to their own personal standards, let alone the actual geography standards provided by their state’s Department of Education. Maps and Map Learning in Social Studies not only provided me with food for thought about my use of maps in lesson planning, it caused me to reflect upon my past practice with maps as a student.
Maps and Map Learning in Social Studies
Social Education
November/December 2006
by Sarah Bednarz
The November 2006 issue of Social Education, a journal published by the National Council for the Social Studies, featured a quite interesting article about the importance of teaching map usage in the social studies classroom. Maps and Map Learning in Social Studies, by Sarah Bednarz, highlights the growing importance of teaching students critical map using skills and offered several useful suggestions for teachers on how to get the job done.
I will not lie, I initially considered this article for reflection because it was short and offered a few teaching strategies at the end. However, as I read through the piece, I rather unpleasantly discovered that my understanding of good map teaching was clearly incomplete and if unchecked would do a grave disservice to my future geography pupils. The problem lies in the difference between teaching orienteering skills, i.e. showing kids how to find stuff on maps, and teaching with maps. It seems that many geography teachers have, like myself, failed to see the difference between these concepts.
“Teaching with maps means using maps to help students learn key social studies concepts and relationships. Teaching with maps allows students to learn through maps--that is, to think spatially--in various reasoning and problem-solving contexts in the classroom and real world.” These are higher order thinking skills which are not present in baseline lessons where we teach students that the red line represents a highway and we know how long it is because we have a map scale. This does not mean that knowing the difference between Albania and Alabama because of their cartographic locations is not important, only that we can teach much more with our lessons.
Bednarz points out that part of the problem surrounding map teaching is that few geography teachers understand that spatial awareness comes quite naturally to people at a young age. Symbols are frequently attached to primary school teaching maps which confuse young students’ understanding of otherwise comprehensible information. For example, she notes that young British students interpreted a car symbol to possibly mean the location of a broken down car, a traffic jam and a place where people prefer red cars--none of them guessed that the symbol indicated a region where cars are manufactured. What this tells us is that the spatial awareness represented in mapping may come quite naturally to students, but our common teaching methodologies are all wrong.
First of all, the objectives of map lessons should center on the use of maps to “organize information about people, places and environments” with an eye on analyzing the patterns in the information. After we have determined our initial goals, several strategies can be used by teachers to encourage higher order thinking with maps. One suggestion is that by the fourth grade, students should be able to read a story and create a map to represent it. This is excellent practice for stretching out spatial understanding, and need not be singularly limited to geography or even social studies curricula. A great idea for such an assignment could be to model the process with a Family Circus cartoon (you know the ones, where Billy has the dotted line following his circuitous route as he dutifully performs a task) and assign students to spatially retrace their own steps off of a journal entry.
Similarly, Bednarz suggests that a social studies teacher could assign students to create a map based on the poem Paul Revere’s Ride. “Linking what with where, and reading and thinking with and through maps, makes content more memorable.”
Such lesson suggestions answer to multiple intelligences theory on several levels including the bodily/kinesthetic, visual/spatial, logical/mathematical and intrapersonal modalities.
A more advanced class could benefit from lessons about the political implications of map reading. It is well known that world maps distributed to Russian children during the Cold War depicted the United States of America and other NATO allies as being geographically smaller than they actually were. Similarly, in the disputed presidential election of 2000, legal teams for both the Democratic and Republican parties generated population and voter density maps to support their side’s claim to victory. One of China’s claims to the legitimacy of its forced annexation of Tibet is related to ancient dynastic maps. Many inquiry based lessons about political agendas, perspectives, biases and distortions can be built around map projections.
Any social studies teacher who prides him/herself on being well rounded in content and application should take a hard look at the map lessons they are presenting to their students. There is a strong possibility that their self-evaluation may not measure up to their own personal standards, let alone the actual geography standards provided by their state’s Department of Education. Maps and Map Learning in Social Studies not only provided me with food for thought about my use of maps in lesson planning, it caused me to reflect upon my past practice with maps as a student.